¡Hola! The 3-Foot 6 DM Class - 4

 In which DB says, "about time". 

On Thursday, I found the courage to return to the DM project, just in time for it to head north to the train show on Friday. 

The DM provokes mixed feelings all around. Its nice to have something clean and new to photograph, but it will mean the end of the DX and DC class that we have loved for for five decades or more.

The model is also a mixed bag, so I both love it and hate it. The 3D print is very nice in places (especially the cab and headstocks), but its a bit off in the long hood detailing, not that mattered, as I printed up sides and moved the roof around. My shell has a slight bow in one of its sides. I've also found this a very challenging build, although some of that is my own fault.

Some nice etched handrails arrived from Lewis (made by Aaron Wall) a few weeks back. As known, these are gorgeous, yet a bit long in the x-axis. I believe there are new re-scaled ones available now or coming soon. This set is one of the early ones, so you have to dispense with a segment from each corner if you want to have enough of a gap for the crew to board via the side steps. You'd have to be staring at both the model and a prototype picture closely at the same time to notice. 

You also have a decision on to make on how to mount them. This may affect at what angle, and even for how long, they remain mounted. Ideally the lower ends of the pointy bits would be longer, and fit into slots pre-made in the side sill, or even better, a leaf could be taken from the Z scale playbook, and the yellow side sill itself could be an integral part of the etch. This would make mounting dead easy and provide the best chance of them being straight and resistant to being bent when knocked.

It may not be immediately apparent as the black GP above is not shown in a large photo, but the sidesill edge, the handrails (long and short hood), and the battery boxes under the cab are all part of the same etched strip here. Easy to assemble, always lines up, always stands at 90 degrees, and resistant to breaking.

But be that as it may. 

Back to NZ120land. I added some brake hoses, put in some MV Lens 'lights', and finally got around to glazing the front window. I did a much better job than I did on the back end window, including a strip between the window segments. Looks ugly, but viewing from this close is prohibido anyway.  That blue builder's plate is a bit '3d' from this angle!

I trimmed the handrails and superglued them on using some stripwood to hold them a constant distance out from the long hood until things had set. As mentioned, I'd like to have put the mounting pins into slots in the sills, but getting slots in the right places would have been a messy and time consuming job, so here they are out proud. A bit ugly, but a some yellow over the top makes them look a little better.  

The chassis is an old SD90 with a hardwired decoder. It seems to run nicely enough. A fuel tank and bogie sides come with the print, but I decided not to use them. The tank is a bit of a squeeze on the chassis, so it broke (and it was bowed anyway). I may use the bogie sides in future. 

My fuel tank is from an Atlas Dash 8 out of the spares bin, with the 'near end' being a part from a Japanese shunter top, chosen because it had a decent sized square grille that looks a bit like the aluminium cooling radiators on these. Now that I think about it, I don't think the prototype has these on both sides...!

A million other little detail things were done. Blue Stadler makers plates (under the cab on the LE's side) were added, as were silver tips to the brake hoses and taps, the four side steps, and various roof antenna. I also added a bit more detail on the cabtop air conditioning units. The inside rear of the 'good' cab wall had some 'smoke' applied, as it was a bit bright with its white styrene and yellow overspray.

I was going to tart up the bogies using the supplied sides, or even improving these SD90 ones with some sandboxes on the inner ends and parking brake units on the outboard ends, but time is short, they are dark black, and you don't really notice. 

The model could do with some numbers on the front and also the white KiwiRail logos on the Stadler design trademark black chevron, but this will do for now. 

So now that it's done (about time too, (told you I'd say that)), do I love it or hate it? I certainly like it a lot more than I did on Thursday morning.